Warm hands grip my cheeks and the smile on my lips slowly fades as I tilt my head down.
Blue, gold, burgundy, gray, black, and white capture my attention.
My, her eyes are ever changing. They’re so hypnotizing.
“What are you doing out of bed, little burden? We’re supposed to be having this conversation between the sheets.”
I lift her in my arms, grinning once again as she squeals in surprise.
I plop her down back in her spot and snuggle in close to her.
Hope she doesn’t mind I’m naked. It’s so freeing to sleep with no clothes on.
“Now where was I?”
“Riven, maybe we should take a break.”
“Why in the realm would we do that? We’ve opened this jar of taurnshit. Might as well let it reek up the whole room.”
“Because I don’t want it to hurt you. I don’t want talking about this to dredge up a side of you, you can’t contain. And I don’t say that to be mean or anything, but you just completely lost yourself there. I can’t lose you. In any capacity.”
“Aww, angel,” I coo, gripping her jaw and making her stare into my unswirling eyes. “This is always going to hurt me. That’ll never change. You won’t lose me, though. My soul will grip onto your sweet little sliver living in me and drag me back. I wouldn’t have it any other way, so let’s get through our bedtime story, okay?”
Her eyebrows draw down and her nose crinkles in the cutest way. I can’t help but boop it.
She huffs at me.
“Okay, so where was I…Ah yes. Everyone said I was disgusting. I, for the life of me, couldn’t figure out why beings who I witnessed do the things they did whispered that about me. Come to find out, some thoroughly enjoyed my presence in Seductions. Some did not.
“Those who didn’t, believed I needed some sort of restraint. If I became too much, I needed to be removed from the Chamber and locked away until everything was under control. That opinion came from the feeders who didn’t really want to be there but had no choice.”
“Creed mentioned someparticipantswere willing and unwilling. I still…I don’t understand. I obviously know what unwilling means, but not in this sense. Like if they don’t want to be there, why are they? Is she kidnapping them and forcing them? Or?”
“In a sense, yes. Every female born or otherwise in the Abandon, who has a Domain under Seduction, has to work at Seductions for an undetermined time. To refuse that would mean being stripped of your power. Those who are pretty powerful and their abilities manifest in a more sexual way, haveno issues with this. It’s those whose abilities are of the nonsexual sense that put up a fight.”
“That’s fucking…”
“Disgusting? Yes, yes, it is and that is where the issue lies with me. I didn’t understand this until many, many years later. What the Goddess of Seduction neglected to tell poor, sweet, influential me was that harmonizing them and their powers wasn’t a good thing for everyone.
“My Harmony was stealing their will to keep fighting. It was subduing those who didn’t want to be there to the point they just lay there and took it. While it was basically super charging those who wanted to be there. I was amplifying and creating a never-ending, incredibly potent supply of sexual energy for not only them, but forherto feed on.”
I breathe in through my nose, out through my mouth repeatedly to the tempo of Thayla’s heavy heartbeats. I’m practically panting, trying to keep up.
Her soul might not shiver in my chest like it does the others—yet—but her body tells me all I need to know. Her quiet sniffles, the vibrations beating beneath her surface.
She’s a fucking storm of emotions, ready and willing to destroy everything in her path.
For me.
“You keep up this sudden silent treatment and I’m going to start thinking you’re upset with me.”
“Never. I…fuck, I don’t know what to say or ask. You’ve kept this from your brothers this whole time? They have no clue what you were really doing? And your father just allowed this? I mean, him pulling this shit now, I understand. He’s an evil piece of shit, I guess always was, but you were six. You all were just children. Where the hell were your mothers this whole time? Did he kill them?”
Errr. Not opening that jar of taurnshit.
“Couple things. First, my father washed his hands of me the second my Chaos came out. I became the disgrace he now calls me from that moment on. His and Derivius’s feud…that’s a long story paved in blood and betrayal. One I’m not getting into tonight as well. Our mothers are a hard limit that we don’t speak on.”
I grimace when she flinches against me.
